Remove Listing from DMOZ

Not a bad idea.

However, don't be too surprised if you discover that some editors, seeing that, say, "Oh! So he thinks he can outsmart us, eh? Just for that, we'll multiple-list, deep-link his site with even crappier descriptions, just to piss him off!"...

 

I thought someone had reported writing to Google and asking them to drop the DMOZ description. And they did. That might be a good option to at least try. Then you get to keep whatever advantage a DMOZ listing might offer and none of the disadvantages. Also try and find out why Google is using the DMOZ description and not your own - it might be that the Google algorythm doesn't trust whatever you are trying to get them to display.

 

Hello brizzie,

It isn't the snippet that concerns us, it is that the DMOZ listing <title> is overriding our own <title> tag. Our title is bang-on with respect to content and is less than 60 chars in length.

DMOZ LISTING TITLE : Company Name
OUR OWN TITLE : (keywords descriptive and content relative)

As I am sure you know, title tags are critical for good rank. MSN Search and Yahoo! have us indexed perfectly with our own title tag, and Google does not.

Thanks for the encouragement minstrel, but <me shrugs> at possible DMOZ retribution. We're sunk at Google because of this and any further damage to our rank would be marginal.

Moreover, if their editors did decide to create multiple listings they would simply be creating more 404 log entries and more manual work for themselves.

And yep, ima pretty pissed at their paternalistic/holier than thou attitude.

[organix]

 

Do you mind posting the URL and/or where you see this in the Google results, organix?

Google using the description tag isn't new. Google using the title would not only be new but damn weird.

 

My guess would be http://www.officeorganix.com/

 

Any editor who decided to take retribution would be guilty of abuse and face removal of their editing rights - it would be an incredibly silly thing for an editor to do and won't happen. On the face of it asking for DMOZ to remove a site seems reasonable but the precedent it would set if allowed would add to already overloaded editors - they should be listing sites not removing sites that work on request. Your real problem isn't with DMOZ - DMOZ has never asked Google to use its title for your ste and quite frankly it causes more problems for DMOZ than it is worth. Your problem is with Google and you might have more success lobbying them.

Added: before this starts an argument this has been discussed internally in DMOZ a couple of years back - I was in favour of allowing removal of sites on request, as were some others - a handful of deletions a year on request is no real skin off anyone's nose. But a majority were against so the policy of no deletions on request stands and editors must comply with that regardless of their personal views - they can't do it.

 

How absurd. Totally ludicrous.

What on earth were the reasons given for being against requested site removals? The old bogus crap cited in RZ about "How do we know it's really the site owner making the request?"?

It's not like you have millions of webmasters breaking down the doors demanding their sites be removed.

 

If so, Google is showing the title from the page itself:

 

Odd.

If you search for organix, it brings up the site (#4) with the dmoz description and title.

If you search for officeorganix you get the meta info from the site for the title and description.

Google is weird.

 

I was also in favor of removing listings on request. Especially in the case of personal pages (as in the example from RZ). I can understand the other side of the issue: 1) Dmoz lists sites that are usefull to users, 2) it could become a large drain on time, and 3) it most likely wouldn't take too long before webmasters began posing as the owner of their competitor's site and asking for that site to be removed (which means there would have to be a way to verify ownership of a site (which wouldn't be terribly diffiucult really)). However, I still fall on the side that we should allow webmasters to request a removal from the directory.

 

Seems like this started months ago. There are already several threads here at DP where this phenomenon that google comes up with those variations in Serps was discussed in length.

 

And if you search for office organix (two words instead of one) you get the dmoz title and description as well.

 

No. It would not be at all difficult OR time consuming and I highly doubt that it would be a drain on editor time at all.

As for the organix and office organix listings, that's interesting. I've never seen Google use a DMOZ title before - descriptions but not titles - but then these days Google is doing a lot of strange things. Let's hope it's temporary.

Search for officeorganix and you get the site's data.

 

Isn't it that Google is using the description from the ODP, or are you really talking about the title here?
Funny enough, you were the last person to post in this thread on May 2nd.
"DMOZ description used for snippet for some search terms"
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=9484&highlight=DMOZ

 

vulcano, what we were discussing in that other thread was snippets and the fact that Google will draw the snippet (description) from different places depending on the search term.

This is quite different: In the case of the organix site, Google is ignoring the <title> tag on the page and using the DMOZ title instead. What I'm saying here is that I've never seen that before.

Perhaps it's happened before but until today I've never seen it.

 

Congrats to Google, in respect to this organix IMHO the result is perfect as the "organic" title is pretty much nothing but keyword spamming.

 

What's spammy about it? I might prefer to make it a bit "prettier" but it describes what his site is about both fully and concisely.

The DMOZ titles seen above, on the other hand, tell a potential visitor nothing at all about the site.

Seriously. What the hell kind of title is that?

 

May be we can agree on the fact that if you visit the site, the clear title there in bold H1 is Office Organix, period.
Anything else is crap, once again congrats to Google and the ODP title and description is ok with me.

 

Answer: It's the name of the business.

[Vulcano typed faster than me. I totally agree with what he had to say on the subject. ]

 

Any site who makes a request to Dmoz/AOL in writing to have their link removed from Dmoz directory and Dmoz fails to remove it. I suggest you first file a copyright complaint with Google and second file a copyright lawsuit not in district court but your cities small claims.

When naming the defendant include the editor ( which will be named John Doe until records can be obtain through the courts ), Dmoz/ODP and AOL. The reason for naming the editor is that if enough of these are filed and enough judgements are handed down. These editors could face huge financial loses as the judgements can be collected from them as well, including filing liens against their bank accounts and personal property. Editors are a representative of the company and therefore hold certain legal obligations to those in their categories.

Filing in small claims this way the cost is minor and it will have the same effect on Dmoz/AOL. Once you receive judgement file that judgement with Google, Yahoo and MSN for copyright violations.

I would suggest that you send this by email to the editor of that category ( make sure you keep this in a folder you wont delete) and certified mail to AOL legal. Give them 14 days to remove the listing.

If enough of these are filed Google will get the idea and either stop using these or get rid of Dmoz. If enough judgements are awarded and editors find out they can be held liable for this, then they will either list a proper description or remove the listing when requested.